It's not often that industrial/ebm bands journey to the southeastern USA, especially from Europe.. With this in mind I figured it would be a long trip or a long time before I got to see VNV Nation if I missed this show.
VNV Nation played at Atlanta's The Riviera Club on 9/9/00. Saturday night at the club is Hexensnacht, held at the club on Saturday night and featuring goth/industrial dance music. But tonight was special as Apoptygma Berzerk's Welcome To Earth Tour was playing tonight. And VNV Nation played before Apoptygma Berzerk.
Before the concert I, my sometimes co-host and another DJ(my allies DJ Reaper and Doc Strangelove) spent a fair amount of time interviewing and talking with frontman Ronan Harris. Ronan is as intelligent and pleasent to talk to as his music is to listen to. The interview will soon be available and since this is a concert review, I'll stick to the topic at hand.
Several hours later, after dinner, I got back to see the concert. Right about 10 o'clock, when the concert was scheduled to being, VNV Nation took to the stage amidst a large amount of smoke and applause. Ronan was in front while Mark Jackson was behind him on a slightly higher level of the stage with a screen behind him. Jackson raised his arms up in a "V" while Ronan arranged his to look like an "N," thus recreating live, on stage, the group's symbol.
The music then began with either the song "Arclight" or "Lastlight"(Lastlight being a remix of Arclight I had heard only a few times before the show). When the music began so did the moving images on the screen behind the band. These images continued all night, ranging from mushroom clouds to cityscapes to the band's album covers being distorted to the song lyrics to some of the most interesting footage I've ever seen, a man in what appears to be a city square with a statue and a monument, ringed by fire, and he is banging away on something hidden by the flames to the beat of "Darkangel."
VNV Nation played songs from their latest two albums, "Empires" and "Praise The Fallen." These included "Procession," "Standing," "Forsaken"(the version with vocals). The highlights of VNV's main set included Ronan doing a very enthralling performance singing to "Kingdom," which ended the main set, and "Honour." Before "Honour," Ronan commented to the audience, "In Europe, something always happen when we play this one...The audience sings along." It was great to yell at the top of my lungs along with several other audience members to one of my favorite songs.
Sadly, not all of the audience were as enthused as myself. I had the misfortune to be standing next to several stoners who just stood there the entire time, looking at the stage. Thankfully, the two tall ones went to the back halfway through the show. So I took their place next to two younger stoners who seemed even further out of place in the audience because they weren't wearing black. I would hope the users of depressive drugs would have the decency to at least stand at the rear of the audience. This isn't a Phish concert for heaven's sake!
But largely the audience, which was 99% either goth or rivethead, was great. A few minutes after the end of "Kingdom," VNV returned to the stage for an encore.
The first song of the encore was "Further" from the "Burning Empires" 2CD set. Hearing this song live gave me a deeper appreciation for it. The final song from VNV was "Solitary." Prior to beginning it, Ronan told the audience, "This is our theme song, and we want you to sing along." VNV extended the song and ended a great concert.
Sadly, it was a short concert, but was still awesome. I would have liked to have heard "Joy," "Voice," or possibly one or two songs from VNV's debut, "Advance and Follow," but I was so happy to see VNV play live that even a short set couldn't reduce from the experience. And with so many great songs, both played and unplayed live, I could not complain "They didn't play my favorite song." The songs are many times more moving and intense live.
